Unmanned automated vehicles (UAV's) need to sense and avoid the presence and locations of obstacles in order to safely navigate paths to complete their missions. Airborne UAV's further have the need to detect other airborne objects from their surrounding environments. Power and weight constraints, however, limit what sensing technologies may be employed in airborne UAV's. Stereoscopic image processing requires duplicity of image sensors in order to capture images that may be used to determine a range of an airborne object. In addition, in many applications, the required separation of the image sensors for a desired depth resolution using stereoscopic images exceeds the available dimensions (for example, wingspans). Single sensor technologies, such as Radar, Lidar and millimeter wave radar (as well as the power sources required to power such equipment) are typically too heavy for use in lightweight airborne UAV designs.
For the reasons stated above and for other reasons stated below which will become apparent to those skilled in the art upon reading and understanding the specification, there is a need in the art for improved systems and methods for airborne object detection using monocular sensors.